


Work Offline

by entanglednow



Series: The Fourth Wall [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-30
Updated: 2009-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-14 17:26:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dean feels abandoned, Sam gambles, and Lucifer discovers candy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Work Offline

Sam ends up in the weird motel room again.

It's like someone has been given a vague idea of what motel and hotel rooms look like and has tried to piece together some bastard breed somewhere in the middle. It's ended up looking like someone's tried to get the best of everything, without knowing exactly what 'the best' quite means. So the room's somewhere between mountain air and rainforest sunlight, and the haphazard crash and rush of the sea. But Sam's also fairly sure there's snow outside the window. It makes him wonder if Lucifer is kind of schizophrenic.

"This room is messed up y'know." He feels compelled to point out.

Lucifer makes a curious noise.

"I don't have much experience with motel rooms, I was attempting something creative."

Of all the phrases you should probably worry about coming out of Lucifer's mouth 'I was attempting something creative,' has to be somewhere near the top.

Though the furniture hasn't tried to eat him, or drag him into hell yet. Sam's going to consider that a plus.

Still, it's got all night to develop man-eating tendencies.

"If I opened the door where would I end up?" he asks, though he's fairly sure he doesn't want to. That that would be _bad_ in some way.

"Where would you like to end up?" Lucifer counters, like the idea has just occurred to him as something interesting.

Sam gives up and slides off the bed, wanders the weird room.

"You must have better things to do," he says finally, when he's checked all the cupboards (empty,) and looked into the bathroom (extravagant.) "Something that isn't harassing me while I'm sleeping."

He wonders if he should try a sarcastic 'shouldn't you be out destroying the world' but it occurs to him that he might force Lucifer into doing exactly that, and they're really trying for the opposite.

"Nothing I'd rather be doing right at this moment," Lucifer tells him. In that slightly overly-earnest way that's more than a little creepy.

"Someone else to harass?" Sam hazards.

"No one who isn't you, you're unique, Sam."

"Everyone's unique," Sam protests quietly. Lucifer makes a 'hmm' noise in his throat, as if he isn't entirely convinced.

"Telling people my name tends to make them...less inclined to speak with me."

"Were you entirely surprised by that?" Sam asks flatly.

"Not entirely," the devil concedes.

Sam sits in the chair by the table.

"You don't have your computer today," Lucifer points out.

"No," Sam says simply. "I'm sorry if the lack of internet porn about yourself is inconvenient."

"I was enjoying the internet for more than pornography," Lucifer tells him, quiet protest and disappointment, like it hurts when Sam thinks badly of him.

Sam refuses to feel bad for him when he suspects that he was using the internet to pick up tips on the many and varied weaknesses of mankind. Not entirely of the porn variety.

"Well you're out of luck, the computer broke, it fell in a well during a hunt and got water in it." Sam fidgets curiously through the shelf next to the table, shoves aside a bible, take-out leaflets, a rhinoceros carved out of wood and a pack of cards- Huh. He snags it, empties them out on the table, all shiny card and over-bright pictures, then gathers them up and shuffles absently.

Lucifer watches, fascinated.

Sam sighs out an irritated breath and kicks out the chair opposite him.

Lucifer looks honestly surprised, but by the time Sam's re-thought whether it's a good idea or not he's already slid into it, arms resting on the table.

"You know how to play poker?" He's fully expecting an 'of course,' some sort of amusement, maybe a dig about gambling with the devil. Instead Lucifer shakes his head, one careful movement that seems oddly innocent.

It throws him for a second. And then it occurs to Sam exactly how _other_ Lucifer is. No matter how relaxed he looks in his skin, he's still feeling his way around the world. Lucifer honestly seems at his least creepifying when Sam just treats him like a person. Just some random person who's confused about things and doesn't quite know how to be human. Or maybe thinking of him as some sort of weird alien is easier than thinking about him as a fallen angel who took all of hell for his own.

"No point playing if we haven't got anything to play for," Sam decides. He smacks the cards on the table, edge down. "What have you got?"

Lucifer's eyes widen slightly in bewilderment.

"In your pockets," Sam says slowly, like he's talking to a small child. Lucifer looks down, curiously, as if maybe he hadn't registered the fact that he even had pockets, or pants, or maybe even legs.

But he moves his hands from the table, digs in his jeans in a way that says, clearly enough, that he has no real idea what he's doing. But he manages to get his hands in nonetheless.

He makes a noise of discovery, pulls free a selection of crumpled bills and a scatter of coins, which roll on the table. Sam reaches over and straightens it all out.

"Ok, you have twenty seven dollars and seventeen cents, congratulations on your incredible wealth."

Lucifer pulls a face at Sam's mockery, then watches him dig through his own pockets.

"I've got- wow, even less than you, and a pack of M&Ms."

He shoves all the money together and splits it down the middle.

"That's yours- don't fidget with it."

Then Sam Winchester teaches the devil how to play poker.

  
~~~~

  
Dean can't sleep.

Granted he's not trying very hard, mostly he's staring at the ceiling while Sam snores quietly in the other bed. Castiel- Dean still doesn't have a clue where he is, and he doesn't know whether to be worried about that or not, he's fairly sure _he's_ not the reason Castiel's done a disappearing act. But Castiel's occasional trips to look for God have always involved sporadic phone calls to tell him where he is, or ask him weird questions or just see what they're doing.

His phone is stubbornly refusing to ring. Which is weird, weird bad, and crazy-making. Leaving Dean alone with his own thoughts is a cruel and unusual punishment, because they're messed up in a way he doesn't particularly want to dwell on, and there are currently no distracting monsters to go and kill.

So he has to think about it. It's- Dean doesn't know the exact words but its some sort of complicated psychological bullshit where's he's been exposed to too much fake pornography and his brain's confused and it thinks Cas is something...is something that he's not.

Obviously.

Sure, he likes having Cas around, likes his weird angel freakishness and the way he makes everything always sound deadly serious, the way he can righteously kick demonic ass. The way he's taken over the back seat with his trench coat and his ever more extravagant levels of sugar dependency and weirdly unangelic internet addiction. The way Sam keeps patiently and hilariously explaining all the weirdness of mankind. The way he looks at him sometimes....

Sam, he's always been here, he's Sam, the world isn't the same without him. But Castiel is new and different and special. But still one of the very few people in the world that has his back without question, that he trusts absolutely.

So, yeah, Castiel is everything else, just not _that._

Everything else.

Except that. ...

Fuck.

 _Fuck._

Dean stares into the dark for a long conflicted minute.

Until Sam mumbles something about a flush beating a straight and rolls over onto his face.

Dean scowls at him.

"Dude, you better not be doing what I think you're doing."

  
~~~~

  
"So," Sam says carefully while Lucifer works out how to fan the cards in his hand.

"Who're you wearing anyway?" It's not a nice question but he thinks maybe he deserves to know.

"His name was Nick," Lucifer says smoothly.

"Was?"

"He was suicidal," Lucifer voice drops, becomes quieter. "He didn't want to be here any more, it was just a matter of time."

Sam looks at him over his cards, because, Christ, they've both been fighting so hard to stay in this world. It's strangely depressing.

"He didn't kill himself," Lucifer says pointedly. "I burned him out."

It takes a second for Sam to understand what he's trying to say. What he's given away, quietly. But it doesn't make a difference, it doesn't make it _right._

"That's what you want to do to me though, right?" he says quietly.

Lucifer sighs and shakes his head.

"Would you believe me if I said no?" he asks. "I don't think you would. But the answer is no, nonetheless."

"Forgive me if I'm not buying this sudden change of heart considering the way everything's been heading in this direction since I was born."

"You more than anyone should be willing to believe in interpretations of the text." Lucifer tosses money into the middle of the table, an absent gesture, though Sam suspects he's bluffing again. It's hard to tell, there's a serene sort of certainty under the hard edges of Lucifer's face. Like he remembers how to be vast and unfathomable.

Lucifer tries to get a look at his cards when he shifts.

"No cheating," Sam grunts and opens the M&Ms, shoves one in his mouth.

The open packet crinkles and falls sideways.

One of them rolls across the table, It's a red one.

Lucifer regards it curiously, a strange, bright thing that serves no purpose.

"Try it," Sam says casually. "I think you'll like it."

Lucifer raises an eyebrow, as if he thinks maybe his likes and dislikes are too strange and vast for Sam to be able to understand.

"Eat the shiny, red candy," Sam tells him without looking, and Lucifer surprises him by doing exactly what he's told.

Sam does look up then, watches him, and yeah, he's seen that expression before, that surprised bewilderment. Like someone who's discovered they have a sense of taste, and now has no idea what to do with it. Lucifer stares at him for a long moment, then swallows.

Sam thinks maybe he's just managed to get a tick in the 'don't destroy mankind,' column.

He lets it sink in while he folds, gathers up the cards (in Lucifer's case reluctantly, since he had a good hand for once) and shuffles them again.

He's checking his own new cards when he hears the faint sound of crunching.

"Are you eating all my M&Ms?" Sam asks, and looks up again. Lucifer's rolling green candy between his fingers, expression surprised approval.

"These are good," he says firmly. Like it's an unexpected and maybe even unnerving development.

"I told you you'd like them, Castiel's just discovered the wonders of sugar and- lets just say it runs in the family."

"You like my brother," Lucifer says curiously.

"Yeah," Sam says quietly. "Yeah, I do." He's one of the good guys, and it had been hard, really freakin' hard for him to get there. Which made it worth more somehow.

Lucifer seems strangely pleased about that.

"He's a rebellious little thing."

"Considering the ones that follow the rules are a bunch of dicks only in it for themselves that's turning out to be a good thing," Sam says, quick and vicious without thinking.

"Mmm hmm," it's a soft murmur of agreement from Lucifer, though there's something old under it, something that feels like a wound that's never healed.

"No one's in it for humans though right. The angels want to shut up shop, stick their fingers in their ears and live in paradise forever, you want to destroy everything. The demons want to- I don't fucking know- roast marshmallows while you destroy everything."

"I don't want to destroy _everything,_ " Lucifer protests.

"Wanting to destroy _most things_ still counts," Sam says flatly.

Lucifer concedes the point with a look.

"Either way we're fucking screwed, so forgive me if I call you all assholes and tell you to go to hell." Sam folds in disgust when he looks at the hand he's ended up with.

Lucifer makes an irritated noise, Sam suspects he actually had something good again.

"Not that that's going to help anything. If everyone gets what they want I know where this will lead."

"I suspect it will, in some roundabout way, lead to you calling me an asshole again," Lucifer says sensibly. Though he sounds amused.

Sam makes an inelegant noise and slides Lucifer's cards out of his outstretched hand.

"I should probably call you worse, you're the devil."

"I'm whatever He wants me to be it seems." Lucifer's voice is soft and faraway.

Sam doesn't have a clue what to say to that.

He offers him another M&M.

Lucifer, it seems, likes the red ones best.

  
~~~~

  
At ten past eight Sam's been in the passenger seat and ready to go for twenty minutes.

Dean's still crashing about in their room, occasionally he'll bring out a bag, realise he's forgotten something and go crashing around in the room again. Sam stares out the window, because whatever Dean's working his way through he's fairly certain he doesn't need an audience for it, or any witnesses. He does finally get everything in the trunk and the back seat to his liking. Or at least can't find anything to be annoyed about any more.

He slides in, starts the engine, and pulls out with a little less care than usual.

Sam can hear him mentally fidgeting but doesn't say anything. He honestly doesn't have the energy to help his brother start the fight he clearly wants.

"You were talking in your sleep last night," Dean says suddenly, tautly, like he knows damn well where he's going but he can't stop himself.

It's the Winchester equivalent of kicking an anthill. Though Sam's not entirely happy about casting himself as the anthill in that scenario.

He grunts something affirmative.

"Were you seriously playing poker with the devil?" Sam shifts in the seat, a drag and squeak that probably isn't earning him any points.

"We weren't playing for anything important," he says carefully

"Uh huh," Dean's voice is tight.

"I had a pack of M&Ms and he had twenty bucks," Sam adds, he's not entirely sure why.

Dean's hands tighten on the wheel.

"So, what, you rifled through his pockets?"

"I did not rifle through Lucifer's pockets," he snaps back.

Dean's still staring at him.

"He rifled through his own pockets ok." There's still a strange pause he feels forced to fill with something. "Then he ate all my M&Ms."

Dean stops looking at the road for long enough to raise a truly impressive eyebrow of 'what the fuck?' at him.

"It's not like I can get away from him," Sam protests. "Maybe I'm luring him to the side of good with candy?"

"Or maybe he's just luring you into giving him all your candy."

Sam stretches his leg out with a thud and stops holding his damn tongue.

"Dude, I don't know where Cas is, or why he hasn't called, stop taking it out on me," he says flatly.

Dean's mouth pulls into a thin line, telling Sam he's scored a direct hit, but Dean looks so wounded that he almost feels bad about it.

  



End file.
